"Summaries" of anthropologist Sarah F Green's writings


Author: Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan, if that helps)        
Version: version 5 (19th June 2026, Chapter 4 summary finished)


Introduction. Urban Amazons. 1997. It opens by declaring that this book is about a group of women living in London in the late 1980s - we learn that they are lesbian feminists trying to put into practice the theory that the personal is political - and what it means to be a person in this time: the late modern age. It is based on 18 months fieldwork. The feminists are radical and revolutionary feminists. The theoretical commitments of this community as presented in the introduction are not so easy to follow. We are told that radical and revolutionary commitments "led some women to create a lesbian feminist community in which to live" but on the next page that the community was undergoing a change: a move away of the the 1970s feminist politics, which emphasized the commonality of women, to 1990s politics which emphasizes difference and is anti-essentialist. A feminist focus on identity is replaced with talk of/acceptance of identities plural. Green presents the broader political context of the 1980s: "a decade which began with the Greater London Council (GLC), under the socialist leadership of Ken Livingstone, which fought a rearguard action against the Conservative Thatcher administration," but was later abolished. Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act prohibited the promotion of homosexuality. Green questions descriptions of the lesbian feminist culture as a sub-culture or counter-culture because this suggests or implies a large gulf between members and normal people; with her training in anthropology, she says that the society looks entirely Euro-American to her. She denies this is an objective study despite her efforts at accurate representation: someone else who studied the same people would have made different arguments.


Chapter 1. A Matter of Identities. *Who is studied.* Her time in London begins in 1987. Members of the community studied did not live in one region of London - a map on p.12 shows distribution [more in Camden, Lambeth, etc., some in Lewisham, Greenwich, fewer in Bromley, Tower Hamlets - concentration in artsy areas, it seems] - and social venues used were shared with others: various social venues used by lesbian feminists were run by lesbian and gay [male?] groups (p.11). Through bookshops and protesting and volunteering, Green becomes involved with the community. Protests were being made against the draft of a new Local Government Bill which would prohibit teaching or suggesting that homosexual identities were positive things. A Lesbians Against the Clause group formed: 4 lesbians abseiled into the House of Lords in protest on Feb 2 1988, and another 4 chained themselves to BBC newscasters desks on May 28. The Conservative media referred to a Loony Left, which pursued identity politics. At times Green was subject to hostility or misled but this was rare. Green lived with a lesbian feminist for 3 months and moved 4 times in the 18 month fieldwork. The bulk of her time was charting the structures, day to day activities, and interrelations of lesbian feminist groups. She also did in-depth interviews with 30 women, less intensive research, and collected data about mailing lists. Of the 30 women interviewed, 4 had been married, 6 had children (despite now identifying as lesbian feminists), 4 currently or in the past defines themselves as working class [in my experience, used too often by social science lecturers in self-description to be generally believable], 1 disabled, the remainder middle class, and 5 were ethnic minorities - she could not attend black women only groups (p.14-15). Most of the women worked in social and health services, teaching, or manual trades - not suitable for visiting during employment. Green worked on an archive, forming close associations with 2 fellow workers, and helped organize a 4 day conference in 1988. Lesbian feminists would not mix socially with those who identified as sadomasochistic lesbians (S/M dykes), campaigned for their exclusion from venues and protests even, and Green mostly did not mix either. *Radical and revolutionary feminism.* Radical and revolutionary feminists both believe that women suffer oppression due to relations with men, leading to support for separatism, but radical feminists concentrate on the gender identities women are encouraged to adopt - objects to male subjects - whereas revolutionary feminists concentrate on sexual relations with males to explain oppression: emphasizing rape, incest, and pornography. This is Green's outline and not subject to total consensus amongst those studied. "Lesbian" is redefined by separatists as a political identity - refusing to participate in systems which oppress women  - the sexual dimension receding out of view. (Heterosexuality itself is not said to be a problem, but heterosexuality connected to patriarchy. Green strangely says that the lesbian redefinition implies that heterosexual women cannot be feminists; why given the removal of sexual element?) However, in the next section of her book, we read of hostility to purely political lesbians, p.20. And (this section) S/M dykes were not proper lesbians, by the redefinition, but in practice were treated as anti-feminist lesbians. *Dichotomies and pluralisms.* The lesbian feminists viewed society not as an organic whole but as composed of groups with antagonistic interests: men and women. [There cannot be a lesbian feminist functionalist anthropologist then.] The politics of fighting patriarchy was exhausting and not left at the door after protests. There were other identities in the community, e.g. black feminism, which defined the antagonistic groups differently, and gay liberation, which opposed homosexuals to heterosexuals. (Earlier on in the chapter, Green told us postmodern doubt about whether gender and sexuality were real "led many women to feel their community was fragmenting." p.10 And the community studied was ahead of its time and some of the issues the Internet gives rise to, of fragmentation, were already present for them.) *Difference and 'community.'* Both gay and lesbian feminist liberation projects valued autonomy and saw society as excessively constraining autonomy [individual or group autonomy?] and communities were seen as sources of suppression, in their emphasis on the sameness of members. Community was needed for countering patriarchy but was also the restriction of the individual.


Chapter 2: Space in Between. *London locations.* [My heading.] The chapter features a table of where lesbian feminists resided, complementing the map in chapter 1. Also there is a map of where venues are: lesbian/gay organizations, social venues, women's centres, bookshops, and more. There is a concentration in Camden and Islington. Green says that venues started up and shut down and lesbian feminists themselves often moved homes. Those who lived in central London almost all lived in council housing or cheap places to rent provided by housing associations.  Housing was reported to Green as a perpetual problem, as well as jobs, with quite a few working in the voluntary sector. Contrasting with the changeability of their lives was what they regarded as depressingly static: the conservative, non-feminist, heterosexual world. *Wesley House Archive.* Green describes in some detail Wesley House, where she worked on an archive: a six storey building, bought by the GLC women's committee from the West London Methodist Mission. The building's identity was poorly marked, entrance on a side street - the door was electronically controlled. The security guard was a man, the only man she met in buildings for lesbian feminist organizations. [A bit confusing: she tells us that lesbian feminists did use places used by gay organizations, but there were women only restrictions.] Eventually the male at Wesley House, whose presence rankled, was replaced! The building is described as opulent and the most frequently used by lesbian feminist groups. The Archive was founded in 1984 by radical and revolutionary feminists - actually more revolutionary, it later says (p.38), with a founder discontent with changes in politics (p.37). The Archive collected lesbian history, literature, and culture. The Archive's walls collected newspaper clippings, including one about the legendary trial of Radclyffe Hall, persecuted in 1928 for obscenity. Anne and Paula - the main workers - had postgraduate qualifications in women's studies. Anne, a 30s Australian, wanted "Information Centre" added to the archive name, to get grants and was prepared to downplay lesbian feminist qualities to better achieve such ends, earning her respect as an entrepreneur-type but also some distrust. (Green contrasts Anne with a Jean, who never compromises politically.) Paula, late 30s, was quiet and avoided Anne's fund-raising plans. Anne was a radical feminist, Paula revolutionary, but was changing because of reactions to black feminists. S/M dykes were banned from the archive office - they wore black leather, chains, jack boots, dog collars with steel studs, Nazi badges, and so on. Their acceptance of dominance and submission was against what lesbian feminists stood for. Green joined the archive as part of 12 women, all white.  Chapter describes others involved in the archive and what was worked on: Summer School, conferences, facilities for the disabled, and more. Women criticized each other for racism, classism, disablism, heterosexism, and more. Jean is labelled thought police for criticizing others as anti-feminist. Criticisms were common but also people were left upset. *Safe space.* Green details how the concept of a safe space was used. [Since her study, the concept has become more widely known.] Green discusses two interpretations of safe space for lesbians: according to which males are being excluded (electronic doors are at least partly for this) and according to which the aim is to exclude certain ideas, those that reproduce hetero-patriarchy. People with these ideas could possibly get past the electronic door and were not necessarily male. S/M dykes were excluded for bringing the wrong ideas: that sexual relations bring violent inequality. Green identifies how the achievement of a safe space implies a sameness amongst women, excluding a common source of oppression. Sameness was fragile: difference was continuously at risk of emerging. Green says that lesbian theory, with its emphasis on experience, conflicts with the concept of community, as an assertion of commonality.  *Rights of Woman (ROW) organization.* ROW was an organization through which lesbian feminists interacted with those outside the community, and Green says that for the most part it does not serve the community and its office is not community space, as the Archive's office was. It was funded by the GLC in 1982 and based at Tindlemanor. It ran 4 projects, providing campaigning, advice, and help functions: Lesbian custody project, an employment law project, a social policy project, and a family law project. Green describes two workers with opposed views who share a job in the Lesbian Custody Project, which deals with lesbians in custody disputes with ex-husbands: a white revolutionary feminist in her early 40s and a black woman, in her 30s, the previous year involved in a custody dispute, who felt lesbian feminists were thought police. The two mostly got along, "in no small part due to" the revolutionary feminist not expressing her views at work. Towards the end of the section, Green says that the term "community" is being used increasingly distantly from common usage [this is not clear to me]. *Temporary spaces.* (a) Conferences. Whereas ROW provided a practical link between the community and outsiders, conferences provided a theoretical link - papers and books were published out of conference proceedings. Conferences were places where political differences were most visible. (b) Groups. Green details some groups: the Lesbian History Group and Lesbian Support Groups. Lesbian History Group was founded by some revolutionary feminists and for most of Green's fieldwork, only they and friends attended. They discussed lesbian feminist books, mostly historical; later the group grew much larger. Green found that lesbian feminists were relaxed when discussing ideas at LHG meetings. The conflicts between them and other community members over ideas were not there within the group. Green refers to 2 groups which were founded before radical or revolutionary feminism had much influence and in which these types of feminist were rarely involved: Sappho and Kenric. They were for lesbians not out of the closet. (c) Courses. Courses lasted from 6 to 12 weeks. Green attended "Lesbians As Rebel", above a gay and lesbian Islington pub, and "Celebrating Lesbian Sexuality", in Hackney, and "Lesbian History", evenings in a college. In "Lesbians As Rebel," taught by a published author, there was a preference for sharing, over teaching.  The convener had room allocation problems, which she blamed on attitudes of gay men. Outsiders' assumption of much common ground was challenged by separation between lesbians and gays and such problems as these. Green describes how several women dropped out of the Hackney course, for being insufficiently 'radical'. The facilitator of the Lesbian History was more of a socialist than radical or revolutionary feminist. The last 2 meetings discussed sadomasochism, and participants were not relaxed, unlike previously. Participants were asked what being a lesbian feminist meant and a much wider variety of responses than  within the lesbian feminist community emerged. [Insufficient detail here, I feel.] One participant describes themselves as a gay woman, rather than a lesbian [terms synonymous for most heterosexuals] - use of the term 'gay woman' within the lesbian feminist community studied indicates disinclination to be politically active in gay or feminist politics. Courses were different from groups, because participants did not move in a common social circle after the course. Courses existed at the border between the lesbian feminist community and beyond and made boundaries difficult to draw. (d) Marches and demonstrations. These contained multiple perspectives, like courses. (i) Lesbian Strength and Gay Pride was an annual event in London, consisting in 2 weeks of social events in gay venues across the city. They were sponsored mostly by Camden, Islington, Hackney and Haringey local councils, all of which had strongly socialist administrations in the 1980s. "The more steadfastly lesbian feminists" only attended the Lesbian Strength March. Green refers to tensions with S/M dykes. Lesbian Strength distinguishes gender and sexuality as separate issues, which community lesbian feminists treat together. (ii) Lesbians Against the Clause Demonstration. Protests against the proposed clause 28, which prohibits teaching of homosexual identities as something positive. Green strangely says, "Although the demonstration was informed by lesbian feminism, none of the demonstrations and marches were specifically about lesbian feminist issues" - well, clause 28 is not a problem for only lesbian feminists. Towards end of chapter, Green says: "The difficulty with the term *'community'* is its implied static and homogeneous character - in spatial, temporal and symbolic terms." (p.58) Green opposes using it with these implications by drawing attention to shifting venues, symbolism, and different interpretations of sexual and gender identities.


Chapter 3: Relations Within: Continuity and Discontinuity. The community studied did not live together in a commune: there was roughly a *private-public divide*, home-and-work divide, political-and-leisure divide. For these lesbian feminists, the problem is not that there is a private space, rather what goes on in it and the acceptance of certain goings-on as natural (e.g. dominance and submission), rather than socially constructed and open to change. Green presents a paradox of if something is private but political, does the public-and-political arena have the right to judge it? *The scene* Green defines it as where lesbian feminists socialized: certain pubs, clubs, discos, coffee shops, events held in women's centres, some theatres. These were explicitly gay/lesbian, providing freedom from the widespread assumption elsewhere of heterosexuality and its superiority. The scene was otherwise like most London night life: oriented to young people. (a) Pubs. (i) The Fallen Angel. Well-furnished, bright, with live music. Loud and full in the evenings. The high prices partly explains the dominance of gay men - men earned more money. There were women-only evenings. Green describes a style typical of lesbian feminists: stout trousers and shirts, jumpers, Doctor Martins boots or trainers, often a labrys earring (a double-bladed axe which generally signified 'lesbian feminist'), short hair. She also describes some other styles, one involving predominantly black clothing, with little indication it had been informed by feminist thought. Another was an ethnic look, of Indian patterned cotton cloth worn by white women. This style is connected to eco-fashion. The place did not mostly attract S/M dykes and libertarians. (ii) The Duke of Wellington. This was owned by a woman who organized the first woman-only discos in London. It was more a lesbian than gay pub. The front bar had local men who drank beer and ignored the lesbian/gay posters: there was no antagonism between them and lesbian feminists. Toward 1989, this pub was frequented by libertarians and baby dykes, who felt free to dress as they pleased - a sign of their apolitical stance to lesbian feminists. The black leather used was associated with Queer Theory. (iii) First Out Coffee Shop. It was expensive, mainly used by gay men, with no women-only times. Rarely used by lesbian feminists. (Why is it referred to?) (b) Discos and clubs. Most women only discos occurred at venues used for other purposes. Green describes Rackets, Drums (closed down because of 2 lesbians attacked by men), Heds - attracted "designer dykes", not lesbian feminists - Venus Rising (at an enormous Brixton venue) and Chain Reaction - both mainly S/M dykes. Green describes the "butch" look described earlier (sometimes swastikas, etc.) and this time also the femme look: fishnet stockings, miniskirts, spiked heel shoes, hair often in brightly dyed punk style, "excessive" make-up. This section includes style analysis: the contrasting lesbian feminist style  suggests a character of assertive, seriously, probably argumentative, and lacking a sense of humour according to some (Green disputes this). Style enables spotting: detecting lesbians in public places. But various women said they could spot lesbians not signifying this by style and even ones who didn't realize they were. [Useful.] (c) Socials, benefits, and shows. (i) Socials were similar to lesbian support groups and held in women's centres or lesbian/gay places. Green suggests that women as a whole in UK prefer something similar, by means of their coffee mornings etc., whether lesbians or not. (ii) Benefits were to raise funds and were like political party fund-raising. Homeless Action regularly held fancy-dress fundraisers, including one where many women dressed like Radclyffe Hall. Women often spoke of meeting ex-lovers at such events. (iii) Shows. Shows involve theatre, films, or musical events. The Drill Hall, central London, provided regular feminist/lesbian shows and was popular among lesbian feminists. As part of her general focus on boundaries, Green says venues were outside the scene but overlapped occasionally, and lesbian feminists' being separatist did not prevent enjoyment of the arts in London. *Housing and households.* Most lesbian feminists of this community lived in the poorer sections of inner London, with high ethnic minority concentrations. Green gives examples. Suki, a young Chinese, had been evicted by her parents after "coming out" and after being homeless for 2 years, lived in a housing association flat in Islington. Sandy lived in a mixed-race cooperative household, substandard, in South London, etc. From 30 interviewed, 9 were council tenants, 8 in housing association housing, 4 in short-life housing: squatting, common in the 70s and regarded as part of the feminist project, was not practised, owing to socialist efforts and Thatcherite crackdowns. The 70s squats involved a breakdown of the private-public divide. Collective living is said by many to be too stressful. The increased emphasis on differences between women weighed significantly against living collectively. *Employment outside community* "Lesbian feminists were relatively poor, even though many had high educational qualifications. Of the 30 interviewees, 17 had a degree or higher qualification, and of the remainder, five had professional qualifications, and a further two were studying for degrees. From my knowledge of other lesbian feminists in London, this was not an unusual sample." (p.76) Explanation: women's incomes lower; lesbian feminists rejected traditional feminine jobs in male-run businesses. From 97 employed women, 68 were openly lesbian at work - surprisingly high. 12 of the interviewees spoke of discrimination at work. *Living As Lesbian Feminist* Those who participated in the scene but not feminist activities considered themselves more lesbian than feminist and had gay friends (i.e. homosexual males). Those who partook in feminist activities but not the scene had few gay friends. [I thought this community is largely or entirely separatist - radical and revolutionary feminists.]  (a) Coming out stories. Details some people who avoided feminism, because they suspected they were lesbians and feared too much contact with women, including an Asian. Suki referred to again. Many said coming out process took years and was painful! Good table, p80. Charlotte became convinced men were the enemy at a radical/revolutionary feminist conference, and thought of herself as heterosexual in youth. Others spoke of having adolescent experiences without the language to describe them as lesbian: Alice (African American), Brenda (white working class British), Suki (Chinese). Common to different stories: being lesbian as authentic for them. (b) Politics and lesbianism. Opens with a description of how a lesbian, Nicola, dumped all her male friends, becoming revolutionary feminist, felt it did not deal adequately with race - a view expressed by many white women involved; community changing to the politics of difference - but remained separatist. Nicola tries to give up politics but cannot. Keeps men at a distance at work, but has to restrain politics because women colleagues don't share them. Green says this life is typical of lesbian feminists: they have to compromise theory in real life. Council accommodation acquired by lesbian feminists was handed down to other lesbian feminists. Green details another life, which is puzzling because it involves squatting in the 1980s, contrary to earlier claims of squatting as 70s practice. This person comments on community as requiring public events and seems to think of the community as more lesbian than feminist and distinguishes between personal socialising and political socializing. Green defines "burnt out" as physically exhausted and emotionally stressed from lesbian/feminist activities. [p.84, should it be defined differently from normal usage?] (c) Community relationships and networks. Nicola, like many white feminists, has no close black friends and regrets this. "In times of trouble, whether economic, emotional, or political, friends were expected to support each other." Lesbian feminists were friends with other lesbian feminists, providing continuity with the community, whereas lovers did not. Lovers and ex-lovers established authenticity: one was an authentic lesbian.  "There was no formal 'kinship structure' in lesbian feminist personal relations: no marriages or divorces, and so no affines and no blood relatives (except children)" (p. 88). The stereotypical Western nuclear family was regarded as entirely oppressive to women. Friends were regarded as 'kin' in some sense. Lesbian feminists often expressed unease about long-term relationships, which they referred to as marriage. Long-term relationships were seen as a threat to the community aspired to and to individual autonomy. Green presents how various couples relate to politics, including where there is an interested partner and uninterested one and where political positions were opposed. Not talking about politics was a solution for one couple: socialist and revolutionary feminist. The latter is troubled by the former's alliance with a male dominated movement, despite agreeing on some of the analysis. The former were troubled by the latter's view that feminism requires lesbianism. [Green's descriptions analyse in terms of 'personal/private' and 'public/political', seemingly typical of this school of anthropology, but see (e).] The community always aspired to equality. (d) Children on the margins. Green reports how once a week the daughter of one of Nicola's close friends came to stay, a responsibility taken seriously as part of constructing a non-nuclear family (she described herself as co-parent). Various lesbian mothers found that various heterosexual parents did not allow their children to play with lesbian children. But children were not part of the public lesbian feminist community. Lack of support for childcare was occasionally noted and complained about, though it was mostly regarded as mothers' responsibility. Crèches at lesbian feminist events were to allow mothers to attend the events, not from the community's felt responsibility for children. Socialist feminism in contrast places motherhood and its labour as central issues. Green notes a brief discussion of whether boys would be allowed at a crèche and to what age.  Many lesbian feminists had strong disagreements with their families and lesbian mothers did not think it appropriate to try to ensure children shared their politics.  Green says this is evidence of not dealing with something utopian or a sect. Communes and utopian groups were centred on withdrawal to the domestic sphere and utopians try to create an entirely autonomous alternative existence. 1970s lesbian feminists had some hankering towards this, but the 80s are different. Green notes that children are a problem for the lesbian feminist idea of a community of autonomous persons, because they are not autonomous. And "Radical/revolutionary feminism focused on the 'whore' side of the madonna/whore dichotomy most of the time, attacking patriarchy's view of the female sexual being, not the madonna side of woman as mother." (e) Summary of spatial/conceptual distributions. To capture community thinking, Green constructs a table locating events or doings, with personal and political vertically and public and private horizontally, allowing for four obvious combinations (though private and personal sound the same to us at first blush). Various social events were personal but public, such as discos. Conferences were political and public. Taking care of children was personal and private. (f) Difference and change. Green details a mixed race relationship, between a black woman and white - these are approved of but also seen as problematic. The black member, Alice, says radical/revolutionary feminism fails to acknowledge race. Green says that the emerging politics of difference questioned the reasons for a community at all. Another black woman says or suggests she struggles to not see lesbian feminism as white. An Asian woman criticizes lesbian feminism for overlooking interconnections between gender, race, class, and disability oppression, prioritizing countering gender oppression. Lesbian feminists' social networks were predominantly white and this led to white attendees at events, for example despite efforts, only 7 out of 247 participants at a Lesbian Summer School. One of the 3 ethnic minority women referred to, Alice, became interested in a libertarian approach. She favoured positive sexual images of women, which contrasts markedly with radical/revolutionary feminist approaches to sexual imagery. These feminists felt the libertarian approach would intentionally or unintentionally reduce women to their bodies, as hetero-partriarchy did. (g) The shape of the community. Green conceives of the space of the community as several overlapping spheres: groups you could join, pubs you could go to, courses you could attend, etc. Green describes how neither Nicola nor Alice made a total break with their previous existence, rather adding being part of the community to it. Other identities brought by people joining the community - as black, working class, as Jewish - affected it. Green notes that she chiefly saw working class and ethnic minority members at socials. *Political Lesbianism* Green suggests the definition of lesbian in different spheres is not the same. [Does she have her table from (e) in mind?] There is a representation of 'lesbian' as the realization of women's freedom or rebellion against hetero-patriarchy, and 'lesbian' as a personal sexual identity and the distinction was not clear, she says [not made clearly by community?]. Lesbian feminist theory implied that lesbians had more insight into hetero-partriarchy and how it oppressed women than heterosexual women did. But S/M dykes were not enlightened. Lesbian feminist theory suggests political lesbianism is the main goal: a heterosexual woman who decides that lesbianism is a politically better option. But this is regarded with suspicion in practice. Jean, who had had numerous women lovers, was regarded by opponents as a political lesbian. Lesbian authenticity was not achieved through political practice, rather through personal relations with other lesbians and the coming out process. To enter the personal/private sphere on political grounds alone was regarded as insulting though. [Surely this quest for authenticity ends with "you" genuinely have pleasurable erotic experience with a woman as the criterion.] Green says she is arguing that it is personal relations based on lesbian authenticity that keeps the public / political sphere going between campaigns. [NOTE: this is very like functionalist model, contrary to Green's suggestions of being anti-functionalist, because of its depictions of static bounded society. Behold a community, its structure, and how it is maintained over time.]


Chapter 4. Comparative and Historical Review. Green says she has argued there is no homogenous ideology to this community. This chapter will compare the community with others. *Comparative research on lesbian feminist communities.* Green says she does not know of communities like that studied beyond Euro-American, Australian, and New Zealand contexts. (a) Michelle Dominiy, Christchurch, New Zealand. A 1979-80 study of gender identity more than lesbian feminism, in a small town compared to London. Lesbian feminism is treated as interchangeable with separatism, but Green's London community distinguish the two: separatism is a practice and lesbian feminism is an ever-changing theory, which may or may not lead to separatism in practice. [Page 1 and the descriptions of revolutionary and radical feminism suggest that a close association with separatism, contrary to Green's description here. Will she say that developments since - politics of difference - reduce the association?] Dominy compares 'traditionalist', 'reformist' and 'separatist' groups or women's networks. Her separatists had a biological view of gender, whereas Green's had a social constructivist view. [Is it social construction without alterability when males and females are together? E.g. each have their own interests, which inevitably leads to male domination? Green says yes, basically. A big theme in this chapter is the characterization of lesbian feminists as biological determinists or not.] Dominy uses 'community only with reference to separatists. Dominy divides separatists into visionaries - interested in female spirituality, matriarchy myths, white witchcraft - and activists. Green's community: most radical /revolutionary feminists dismissed witchcraft and matriarchalism as escapist. [Anthropology book: much more on this!] (b) Denyse Lockard, southwest USA city. Study conducted in the early 1980s: women studied white, college-educated, mostly in 20s or 30s. Lockard focused on community and its structure.  Lockard described interaction social networks of lesbians,, who share group identity and basic values and gather together to maintain institutions that support their social interaction and support group identity and shared values. The women were not especially politically active, due in part to the conservative atmosphere. Green contrasts this with London, with its recent history of socialist government and variety of political perspectives. Lockard does not focus specifically on lesbian feminists, covering also straight dykes, which contributes to the contrast with Green's study. (c) Deborah Goleman Wolf, San Francisco. 1972-4. Reputation for the largest lesbian/gay communities in the world. Separatism was a minority position by number. She says it developed because lesbians wanted to dissociate themselves from political lesbians, which Green describes as confusing - it makes sense given the previous chapter's detailing of how political lesbians were viewed as inauthentic. Wolf depicts a cohesive community with a goal of socialist matriarchy. Contrasts with Green's study, where these goals are rejected and there are no shared goals. But her descriptions sound like what Green has heard of 1970s lesbian feminist London: communal living and desire for cohesion. Wolf presents the lesbian feminism of the period as a worldview consisting of a system of classification of people and relationships enabling a shared social reality. In 1980s London, Green says lesbian feminism in 80s London was less a source of shared social reality than a means of gaining individual autonomy through political action. (d) E.M. Ettore, London, 1973-77. She concentrated on the scene aspects of the community, taking a socialist perspective. She argued that once they gain political consciousness, there would be revolutionary change in society. She focused on women termed 'social lesbians' or 'pre-political lesbians', who had some feminism but were not strongly politically committed. Called 'straight dykes' by lesbian feminists in the 80s. Radical feminism is briefly treated, suggested to be unrealistic, and portrayed to be committed to the oppression as arising from biological divisions between men and women, which Green says has more in common with those against radical feminism. [Green's study portrays radical feminists as saying separation from men is required to avoid oppression, so biology has to have some role, even the claim is not that certain gender identities are genetically determined.] (e) Barbara Ponse, northwestern USA city, early to mid 70s. Focuses on lesbianism, rather than feminism. Ponse says that different representations of sexuality within the community studied enabled lesbians to cope with the stigma attached to lesbianism: some argue lesbianism is no different from heterosexuality (the homophile argument), that it is better, or that it is an escape from patriarchy. The rhetoric of oppression, Ponse suggests, is used by lesbian feminists to explain the difficulty in accepting the gay self. Green notes this: unlike Dominy or Ettore, Ponse argues that lesbian feminist approaches to gender were social constructionist rather than biologically determinist. Unlike Ettore, Ponse concentrates on the significance of lesbianism for the individual. Ponse says lesbians define themselves and does not suggest a constant meaning to the term "lesbian". [Green sounds keen on this study.] Ponse nevertheless concludes that the lesbian world had a particular paradigm, and possessed a cohesive group identity. (f) Susan Krieger, small midwestern USA town, late 70s. Focuses on about 60 lesbian feminists, known as a community - a loose-knot social group. The community carried the promise of letting them be who they fully are, but also threatened selfhood, because their unique identities were not valued. Green says, "Krieger thus argues that conflict occurred because of similarity, not difference, in contrast to my own findings" [but the conflict seems the same: the lesbian feminist community needs everyone (or a lot) to be politically committed to achieve group autonomy, which is better for being lesbians, but this requirement of common commitment is a threat to individual autonomy.] Green finds that this study closer to what she has learnt of lesbian feminism in the 70s, and emphasizes the unclear boundaries of the 80s community. *Similarities Between Communities.* (a) Spaces and place. Lesbians on other studies were also scattered within an urban area and not intentionally territorial. They lived where they could afford to live. Castells is quoted as saying that lesbian establish networks rather than territories, are poorer than gay men, and their politics is less directed towards the established political system. Squats are only mentioned by Ettore. The existence of discussion groups, conferences, study groups, bookshops, gay bars, clubs, and women's centres was commonly noted. Lockard and Wolf refer to burn out experiences. (b) All studies describe social relations as overlapping networks of friends and most emphasize friendship. Some describe these as alternatives to traditional heterosexual family. (c) Representational battles and conflicts. Despite general community focus, there were frequent references to conflicts in the other studies. Lockard proposes that impermanence of venues and organisations was partly the result of conflicts between women of varying lifestyles and differences of opinion about how to run these. Ettore discusses conflicts between separatists and non-separatists, gay liberationists and lesbian feminists, and socialist lesbians and lesbian feminists. However, she regards these as a passing phase, contrary to Green's study. Green says that the focus on personal experience leads to the politics of difference, not unity; there are several definitions of lesbian with one unlikely to dominate [from what Green says towards the end of chapter 3, I suspect the authentic lesbian based on sexual pleasure dominates]; new women join unfamiliar with lesbian feminist philosophy, and more. Different meanings of 'lesbian' are discussed by Ponse: as total lifestyle, in contrast to the traditionalist reading of it as an ontological status. Krieger discusses conflicts involving lesbian feminist rejection of butch femme role play. Bar dykes and lesbian feminists regarded as entirely distinct groups. Ross describes a conference organised by a coalition of feminist groups in Toronto descending into a bitter shouting match and stalemate between radical and socialists feminists. Narrowness of perspective is often discussed in relation to lesbian feminists, e.g. McCoy and Hicks on Los Angeles lesbian feminists. Green makes a distinction between ignoring race and separatism prevents all women from expressing their own individuality. (d) Intellectual ambivalences. Green says that the conflict between autonomy and community emerged in several studies, referring to Dominy as well as Krieger. Green agrees with Faderman that Euro-American cultures during this century provided the means to create lifestyles and communities never before seen. Several studies refer to conflicts between authentic and political lesbians, such as Ettore and Ponse. Green says there is a comparison here with communist movements of the 1970s and complaints about middle class participants imitating working class accents. *Summary of comparisons* A general picture emerges of the period from 1972 to 1984 of lesbian feminists in a state of becoming, working towards an alternative culture but unhappy about the rules imposed on them. [Some summary material omitted, because I have summarized above.] Green asks why long-term relationships were regarded as anti-community, since beyond lesbian feminists they are often not. Green notes that 80s London differs from 70s London and elsewhere in its concern about ethnicity. Also there were not the conflicts in the 70s between radical feminists and libertarians over pornography and sexual practice. There was an absence of S/M dykes and debate about them. Ponse suggests a difference between gay men and lesbians is the absence of S/M in lesbian the lesbian community. Also there is an absence of lesbians reassessing their perspective. The communities were smaller and less diverse than London. The politics of difference in London was paralleled by Toronto, according to Ross.  Community and autonomy again on p122, said to be central conflicts in Euro-American culture in general. Some lesbian feminists Green studied denies there is a community, a quote being it is too anonymous, scattered, and fragmented. Martin and Lyon in San Francisco ask why lesbians are unable to develop a sense of unity. Green asks what kind of community is it where members sometimes deny its existence? *A Brief History*. The 1980s connection between feminism and lesbian did not exist in the early 20th century. The emergence of "gay subcultures" and homosexual identity is researched by gay researchers, while feminist and lesbian feminist historians research first wave feminism. (a) Studies of homosexual identity focus on male homosexuals. Drawing on Foucault they say that this identity emerged between the 17th and 19th century in the West. Foucault emphasized the causal role of medical diagnostic categories, saying the late 18th century [note: I was forced into North Manchester General Hospital for 2 months overall autumn 2023, and a slightly older patient, with a fairly tattooed face, said to me, "We are all mad here," much as some say, "We are all equal here": to prevent you from thinking you are any better - that was my interpretation, anyway], whereas Adam, D'Emilio, Ross and Rapp argue for its emergence with capitalism in the 17th century.  Capitalism and living in large cities emphasized individual choice, autonomously authoring one's life, and sexual partners also became a matter of choice, with those choosing same-sex having the identity of homosexuals. [Note: Green in lectures presents Professor Marilyn Strathern as promoting choice-focused culture as a theme, or theme in anthropology, if I remember correctly.] Green proposes an intermediary view, that medical discourse was not the cause of homosexual identities, but had an effect by naming it. There are records of lesbian bar cultures in Europe and the USA from the 1920s onwards. They were dominated by butch-femme cultures, because of the sexological belief that sexual attraction required opposite genders: there must be masculine and feminine participants. It was not even a sexual act, for some, without one participant playing this role.  Sexologists accused lesbians of going against nature. Green draws a contrast: historians of [presumably male] homosexual identity regard its emergence as positive, whereas historians of lesbian identity regard use of the "lesbian" label as negative. Women's increasing economic independence, during first wave feminism, and corresponding autonomy led to use of the label in a derogatory way, as a means of control - sexologists were opposed to the feminist movement. But Green says that "lesbian" as a derogatory label emerged in the 1970s and it was spinster feminists who were earlier described as unnatural. [This is confusing for me. Is Green opposing the histories she read?] Refers to Joan Nestle's research, which is positive about the butch-femme concept. Nestle says that participants in butch-femme culture were working class and discriminated against by the middle class. (b) The emergence of lesbian feminism. For most of the 20th century, lesbians had been depicted as quasi-men whereas in second wave feminism, they were regarded as women and free of hetero-patriarchal control.  The ideas of lesbianism as a political choice and lesbian communities as the place for feminist communities emerged. [Note: Green's histories omit the famous trial of Radclyffe Hall, her social class and striking appearance, and the support from her from middle class Bloomsbury liberals.] Green thinks Freud's ideas were also near-essential for the emergence of a lesbian political identity. Echols gives a comprehensive history of radical feminism. Influenced by 1960s racial civil rights movements, it was said that women are to men as blacks are to whites. Radical feminists emphasized commonality between women. The right of woman to enjoy sexual practice equally with men was asserted. Anne Koedt's "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" (1973) is a classic paper. [Derrida: privileging of speech over writing in Western society?] Radical feminists initially supported the Gay Liberation Front, which emerged around the same time, but found the movement dominated by men uninterested in feminism, leading them to join the Women's Liberation Movement. Green says women with different motivations came together to form lesbian feminist communities, though she does not clearly identify these when asserting this [largely political, as a better vehicle for feminism, or largely sexual, to pursue alternative sexual lifestyles?].  So it is unsurprising that differences between women would later emerge as a big issue. She says, "So this community was unusual, as communities go, partly due to the continual poking around in the details of the contents of the identities which formed boundaries of the community" - this is characteristic of Green's analysis but seems disconnected from the information before and no clear connection is made. *A question of boundaries.* Previous studies of community boundaries underemphasize external influences in boundary drawing, but the lesbian feminist community emerged from the conditions of city-living. Green refers to A.P. Cohen's studies, in which people construct community boundaries but are unaware of the process of symbolic construction, whereas Green's lesbian feminists were conscious of boundaries as constructions, and beliefs that seemed essential to the community or individual members were challenged within the community. Green criticizes Cohen for emphasizing a community's power to self-define. The word "lesbian" was taken or imposed from beyond the community, even if it was subject to some redefinition. [Philosophical puzzle: if they give it a new meaning, then they have the power of definition, in line with Cohen. Green's position is surely the complicated "Their power of definition is limited by the earlier meaning."] Green proposes that rather than Cohen's strict but constructed boundaries, lesbian feminists believed in a hierarchy of oppression, which caused an unclear boundary: a white gay man was less oppressed than a white lesbian, who was less oppressed than an Asian lesbian. [My interpretation: as a political community combatting oppression, there will be borderline cases: are they oppressed enough to be members? Even are they too oppressed or their chief oppression is something else?] Green quotes A.P. Cohen's claim "people assert community, whether in the form of ethnicity or locality, when they recognize in it the most adequate medium for the expression of their whole selves," and finds it similar to what Epstein, Burton, and Abner Cohen say; but her lesbian feminists participate in multiple groups or social networks. Green criticizes anthropology for lacking historical analysis, which this chapter has provided.   


Brexit will not solve anything. 2016. Green opens this article by suggesting that Brexit is comparable to Hawaii, Texas, or Puerto Rico leaving the United States. It was not a surprising vote result because the United Kingdom had been "fighting" (her word) the EU ever since it became a member of the predecessor organization, the EEC (European Economic Community), in 1973. Green earlier in the year edited a collection of brief immediate responses by 28 social anthropologists, to the British referendum vote to leave the European Union. She says three responses from anthropologists stood out.  *Cause and effect?* One is that the result of a referendum is rarely followed by what voters asked for. A Greek referendum rejected the bailout offer presented by the EU, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund: too punitive; then "EU negotiators insisted on worse terms than the Greek government had been offered before the referendum." Citing Madeleine Reeves, she explains the general disconnect as because "referendums are not an ideal way to resolve complicated problems." And: "It is a bit like a TV quiz-show form of politics, which discourages detailed debate and nuanced discussion. Ultimately, that harms democracy." *British underdogs* Her second point is "Brexit reveals a distinctly British anti-establishment sensibility." She quotes leading Brexit campaigner Michael Gove's view that "people in this country have had enough of experts. *Empire nostalgia.* Third, the Brexit debate did not bring out the typical sort of nationalist arguments but rather those of an imperial kind. Many expressed nostalgia for the days when Britain had an empire and was Great Britain. (Green's view* Green does not think voters hoping for a better life will get it: instead "reduced economic stability, fewer protections of human rights, and less of a safety net when people become unemployed or sick."
https://www.sapiens.org/culture/brexit-will-not-solve-anything/
(Note: this journal has ceased publication, but the archive is available.)


Brexit vote boost closes trade gap. 2016. Is this article by Green? I used a link from University of Helsinki website. It opens with statistics, it seems. 
https://article.wn.com/view/2016/09/09/Brexit_vote_boost_closes_trade_gap/
Here is the original link to the World News Network article:
https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/clippings/brexit-vote-boost-closes-trade-gap/


A Brexit in the World, and How It Found Its Place. 2017. Green puzzlingly writes: "Leaving is the key idea of Brexit: It is about Britain leaving the EU, as if the UK is going to pack a suitcase and go elsewhere. This is not just a metaphor: By breaking formal legal relations with other EU member states, the UK will change where it is… Nobody knows where its final location will be; but it will not be here." Many regard the Brexit result as an occurrence within global populist separatism. She tells us life for politicians has been difficult. The UL prime minister at the time of the vote, who called the referendum, David Cameron, resigned, and has hardly been heard of since. The next prime minister, Theresa May, called an election on June 8 (my birthday!) with the aim of securing a large majority to achieve a Hard Brexit. Green says, "Nobody really understands what that is, except that it would involve cutting even more ties from the EU, particularly economic and political ones, than whatever the opposite of a Hard Brexit is." (Influence of Saussurean semantic theory.) The party lost its majority and there was a hung parliament and "May was forced her into a messy deal with a tiny party from Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party… The DUP, a Protestant Christian and pro-British nationalist party, is against most things: It is against abortion and same-sex marriage; the European Union; and, most of all, it is against any kind of deals with Northern Irish republicans." Green interestingly tells us about the Finnish view of events - she is based in the University of Helsinki: "Most people here assume that Brexit will not affect anything much. Many also think that it is already a done deal —that the UK has already left—but for the paperwork in Brussels, which everyone knows always takes a long time." She contrasts Finnish and European Union attitudes: "That stark difference between most Finnish people's attitude (mild interest, but mostly indifference) and the attitude of people working for the EU (genuinely alarmed and horrified) points to a key problem the EU has always faced: as an institution, it feels too remote to most people, somehow outside their place and their lives. It's in Brussels." She says this emotional distance is deliberate. (I find what Green says strange; I have the impression many continental Europeans are passionately pro the EU.) Is there a trend towards global populism, Finns ask, owing the leaderships of Donald Trump (USA), Viktor Orbán (Hungary); Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines); Poland's the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkey), and Poland's shift rightwards. She casts doubt on a Yes answer, referring to moderate victories in Austria, Netherlands, local elections in Germany and, most importantly, Emmanuel Macron's victory in France.


Green, Sarah. 2017. "A Brexit in the World, and How It Found Its Place." Anthropology News website, October 16, 2017. (I can't find an open access version.)


How long until Covid-19 is over? The social history of pandemics gives us a clue. 2021. Green opens with "History shows that most pandemics in the modern era last between 18 months and two years, and Covid-19 appears to be no exception." (No definition of when that modern era begins, no convenient table of data! Was SARS of 2002-4 a pandemic? Green interestingly does not use the anthropologist's method of inquiring into shared assumptions in this article. For me personally, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, I operated on unthinkingly on the assumption that Western liberal democratic economies would continue quite smoothly onwards, if not perfectly: a common assumption I suspect. Previous global problems, such as the 2008 financial crisis, did not lead to the shutting of so many businesses. The iconic suffering images of the Great Depression, interestingly, did not recur. During Covid I found university libraries shut and almost all businesses but supermarkets, for about a year. I got to know the book section of a supermarket.) Green argues that societies will differ on the extent to which they return to normal life. She makes a comparison with AIDS: "some countries are still experiencing AIDS as a pandemic, while others do not." She raises the question of to what extent plagues causes changes of history: "Outbreaks of plague during medieval times devastated large parts of Europe and the Arab world, and some argue that these epidemics often changed the course of history." (Western liberal economies cannot take long shutdowns and my own view is that Western states are trying to change to prevent this.) She ends with a section starting with: "A pandemic is officially defined as "an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people." (This violates norms of writing we are taught, where such definition comes early. Oh no!) The definition, she says, highlights that pandemics are social and involve crossing boundaries. The article is for University of Helsinki news. (By the way, Green previously gathered responses after the Brexit vote to leave the European Union.)


Green, Sarah. 24 June 2021. How long until Covid-19 is over? The social history of pandemics gives us a clue: Pandemics strongly highlight and amplify interconnections and inequalities of the world. University of Helsinki News. Available at:
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/society-and-learning/how-long-until-covid-19-over-social-history-pandemics-gives-us-clue


Locating disease: on the coexistence of diverse concepts of territory and the spread of disease. 2021. I find it easier to think of the structure of this article as a series of associated names and information, until the last section. Green's maternal grandfather *Robert Pulvertaft* commanded a hospital in 1942 and, while there, he made batches of crude penicillin." He ignored the policy that the knowledge should be kept secret and used the medicine on patients. A contrast is made with Nazis, who were also scientists, but had a different political ideology, demanding the destruction of some human beings, as dangerous disease-carriers. Green goes on to examine research on bird flu by  *Frederic Keck* (accents removed because of computer; and interesting material on disease and borders, not always determined by nationalism, by *Zylberman*). "In military terminology, a sentinel is a soldier who stands at the perimeter of an encampment to act as an early warning of the presence of the enemy. The sentinel is often the first to be killed if an attack occurs." Three cases in Hong Kong led to Hong Kong or the cases being described as sentinel, but its use in medical terminology is somewhat different: "a sentinel is a mechanism that communicates the existence of some danger to health." Green reads Keck as saying that in liberal medical regimes, one can aim for managing coexistence, which contrasts with Nazi ideology: the details of the contrast are not so clear to me. She refers to *Amy Fairchild's* research according to which distinguishing different types of bodies is something which does not always happen when responding to pandemics, and draws attention to how (late nineteenth century to 1920s) "different regions of the world were placed in a hierarchy of generating more or less desirable bodies." ("Surely all medicine distinguishes between different types of bodies, in the sense of healthy and sick, and all pandemics are met with medical reactions," you say?) Green refers to *Birsen Bulmus's* study Plague, Quarantines and Geopolitics in the Ottoman Empire, focusing on the 19th century. Green tells us, "the Treaty of Balta Liman. This was one of the most liberal treaties ever agreed between the Ottomans and any other power, and it allowed the British to flood the Ottoman markets with (for example) British cotton." And "Bulmus¸ argues that the vast majority of measures taken to try and control the spread of disease in the Mediterranean region was actually about business interests, and little to do with science" or health protection. (Not even indirectly? Health or no business?). *Peter Baldwin* argues in Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830–1930 that Britain had been very pro-quarantine in some periods and very anti-quarantine in others, according to self-interest. The anti-quarrantine argument was that quarantine is an affront to liberty. Baldwin thinks experiments with different approaches to disease control were carried out. Of *Nukhet Varlik's* Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600 we are told, "Varlık's study implies that Ottoman statecraft was guided by an underlying understanding of their territories as a network of routes, rather than blocks of land, as such." (Where is the anthropology fieldwork?) Late on there is material on the contemporary situation. We are told, "It is clear that most contemporary official responses are attempting to align more closely to the concept of location as network. This replaces the earlier approach of fixed territories that are interconnected via routes, and it comes a little closer to the former Ottoman understanding of territory." Second, thinking of the nation state as a fixed territory has not disappeared. Third, disease is connected with virtual space. "In earlier centuries, people around the Mediterranean spoke of miasmas and evil spirit worlds through which disease would be visited upon mortal people. The more contemporary versions… in which there is a vector across which infection travels, appear to be more like abstractions than unseen places or bad substances in the air; but they are nevertheless increasingly acted upon as if they are there."


Green, Sarah, Apr 2021. Locating disease: on the coexistence of diverse concepts of territory and the spread of disease. In Medicalising borders: Selection, containment and quarantine since 1800. Trubeta, S., Promitzer, C. & Weindling, P. (eds.). Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 178-198. Available at:
https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/875d6dff-37d9-4041-96da-2bcbdbf8c03b/content
(Liberal cotton policy: a metaphor? I have published a lot in Turkish journals by the way.)


The Hedgehog from Jordan : or, how to locate the movement of wild animals in a partially Mediterranean context. 2022. Green notes how Isaiah Berlin made Archilochos's remark famous: "a fox knows many things, but a *hedgehog* one important thing." Green thinks these and some other famous remarks have European hedgehogs in mind: Erinaceus europaeus. She covers some biological classification and notes how animals do not behave in line with political boundaries and how a hedgehog crossed from Jordan to Israel in June 2019, probably belonging of the type Paraechinus aethiopicus. We are told, "the German naturalist who classified and named Pa in 1832,  a man called Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, who made a scientific expedition to North Africa and the East Mediterranean in the early  1820s, took the locational name from his reading of classical history - an obsession in European scientific circles at the time -  and not from whatever names such animals might have been given by people living in the regions that he visited." He aimed at a universal objective system, but the name reveals that all standards have a history. Green claims there are different ways of locating an animal which are consistent, e.g. by natural habitat and by its political location. She writes of how the Linnean taxonomic system was challenged by Rousseau and also Goethe, who favoured the premise that living things are in a process of transformation, over a system that assumed static natures. Green takes this as evidence that the taxonomic system of biology could have been otherwise. The article shifts its focus to the *Mediterranean*, with the bridge that this concept is subject to differing interpretations: Braudel said the Mediterranean is a process; Horden and Purcell characterize through connections and process. A (stronger?) bridge is through how the Mediterranean is used in biology to describe Mediterranean types of ecosystem, even if well beyond Europe: "just as the first hedgehog to be taxonomically classified was a European one, the Mediterranean ecosystem provides the model for the rest of the world." It is tempting for anthropologists to focus on how the term "Mediterranean" is understood by different groups of people, as Janet Carsten recommends for kinship, but Green is interested in the specific use to locate things. It is not clear what she means except the obvious, e.g. "This is located in the Mediterranean", "This is not," "This creature's habitat is partly within the Mediterranean" - the hedgehog we have been introduced to is located mostly beyond it; Pa is not classified as a Mediterranean animal. Following Herzfield, she notes how reference to the Mediterranean is used to make associations with Europe rather than the Middle East and North Africa. The article shifts to *wild boars*, which have been making trouble in the Mediterranean region and elsewhere, including North America: destroying lawns, eating crops, digging for roots. An adaptable species that moves from an indigenous habitat is sometimes described as invasive, but this is associated with colonial, nationalist, and racist approaches to location. She refers to researchers who argue that "Linnaean classificatory logic generated… different locations, rather than recording them". There is debate over whether the wild boar in the Mediterranean are invasive: "just  about every veterinarian, zoological researcher, agriculture ministry official, farmer, animal trader, and hunter that I met spontaneously  mentioned a huge increase in the numbers of wild boar in their region in recent years" - from her 2019-20 ethnographic research. Towards the end of her article, she considers various explanations for increasing wild boar population in Epirus, which she visited in 2020. In between, Green reports Penny Johnson's research: Palestinian farmers suffering from crop damage from wild boars, dumped on their lands by Israeli settlers. Green tells of an Israeli activist working on behalf of the Bedouin and how she believed "the wild boar had been deliberately released by settlers into the Bedouin grazing lands in order to drive the Bedouin away." Green reports her own visit to Israel-Palestine in 2019, and how a veterinarian told of wild boars bringing diseases.  In Lebanon, the wild boar was introduced for recreational hunting, another unnamed researcher suggests. But others believe wild boards were dumped there by Israelis. Various people conclude: "those with the greatest power are the ones who are probably controlling the new appearance of any animals in the area."


Green, Sarah. 2022, The Hedgehog from Jordan : or, how to locate the movement of wild animals in a partially Mediterranean context. In C Rommel & J Viscomi (eds), Locating the
Mediterranean : Connections and Separations across Time and Space. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, pp. 199-221. See:
https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/fa0b9cc6-be08-4122-b536-1454f3377576/content